A low carbon footprint approach to the reconstitution of plastics into 3D-printer filament for enhanced waste reduction

Mohammed, Mazher Iqbal; Mohan, Meera; Das, Anirudra; Johnson, Mitchell D.; Badwal, Parminder Singh; McLean, Doug; Gibson, Ian

doi:10.18502/keg.v2i2.621

Cited by 55 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Despite these drawbacks, a life cycle analysis of materials processed with a recyclebot found a 90% decrease in the embodied energy of the filament compared to traditional filament manufacturing [62][63][64]. Thermopolymers already demonstrated to be acceptable for the recyclebot process include successfully recycled as single component thermoplastic filaments such as polylactic acid (PLA) [50,56,57,60,65], high-density polyethylene (HDPE) [52,66,67], acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) [54,67,68], and elastomers [9], as well as composites such as waste wood biopolymers [55] and carbon fiber-reinforced plastics [69]. With commercial versions of recyclebots becoming more prevalent [51], there is an opportunity to drive a tighter loop for the circular economy [54].…”

Section: Pellets For Recyclebot Filament Manufacturingmentioning

confidence: 99%

3-D Printable Polymer Pelletizer Chopper for Fused Granular Fabrication-Based Additive Manufacturing

Woern

Pearce

2018

Inventions

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Although distributed additive manufacturing can provide high returns on investment, the current markup on commercial filament over base polymers limits deployment. These cost barriers can be surmounted by eliminating the entire process of fusing filament by three-dimensional (3-D) printing products directly from polymer granules. Fused granular fabrication (FGF) (or fused particle fabrication (FPF)) is being held back in part by the accessibility of low-cost pelletizers and choppers. An open-source 3-D printable invention disclosed here allows for precisely controlled pelletizing of both single thermopolymers as well as composites for 3-D printing. The system is designed, built, and tested for its ability to provide high-tolerance thermopolymer pellets with a number of sizes capable of being used in an FGF printer. In addition, the chopping pelletizer is tested for its ability to chop multi-materials simultaneously for color mixing and composite fabrication as well as precise fractional measuring back to filament. The US$185 open-source 3-D printable pelletizer chopper system was successfully fabricated and has a 0.5 kg/h throughput with one motor, and 1.0 kg/h throughput with two motors using only 0.24 kWh/kg during the chopping process. Pellets were successfully printed directly via FGF as well as indirectly after being converted into high-tolerance filament in a recyclebot.

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Section: Pellets For Recyclebot Filament Manufacturingmentioning

confidence: 99%

3-D Printable Polymer Pelletizer Chopper for Fused Granular Fabrication-Based Additive Manufacturing

Woern

Pearce

2018

Inventions

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“…In addition, to the commercialized 3-D printing filaments, there is also a growing body of literature on the ability of FFF to use waste plastic/recycled plastic filament such as PLA [47][48][49][50], high density polyethylene (HDPE) [51][52][53], ABS [53][54][55], as well as waste wood composites [56] and carbon fiber reinforced composites [57]. This has the potential to reduce the costs of 3-D printing further and make the accessibility for 3-D printing feedstock greater in a disaster situation as only a recyclebot (waste plastic 3-D printer filament extruder [51]) would be needed and solar-powered recyclebot systems have already been demonstrated [55].…”

Section: Kijenzi 3-d Printer's Ability To Make Useful Partsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of a Resilient 3-D Printer for Humanitarian Crisis Response

et al. 2018

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Rapid manufacturing using 3-D printing is a potential solution to some of the most pressing issues for humanitarian logistics. In this paper, findings are reported from a study that involved development of a new type of 3-D printer. In particular, a novel 3-D printer that is designed specifically for reliable rapid manufacturing at the sites of humanitarian crises. First, required capabilities are developed with design elements of a humanitarian 3-D printer, which include, (1) fused filament fabrication, (2) open source self-replicating rapid prototyper design, (3) modular, (4) separate frame, (5) protected electronics, (6) on-board computing, (7) flexible power supply, and (8) climate control mechanisms. The technology is then disclosed with an open source license for the Kijenzi 3-D Printer. A swarm of five Kijenzi 3-D printers are evaluated for rapid part manufacturing for two months at health facilities and other community locations in both rural and urban areas throughout Kisumu County, Kenya. They were successful for their ability to function independently of infrastructure, transportability, ease of use, ability to withstand harsh environments and costs. The results are presented and conclusions are drawn about future work necessary for the Kijenzi 3-D Printer to meet the needs of rapid manufacturing in a humanitarian context. Yet, supply chain logistics for humanitarian responses are some of the most complex that exist. It is challenging to forecast both the demand (due to difficulties in knowing both the timing of a disaster and details of the population affected) and the supply, which is often fueled by donations [4]. A massive mismatch between the supplies delivered and the supplies that are needed is often inevitable both in quantity and kind [2,3,5]. As 60-80% of all aid money is spent on procurement, this mismatch represents not only costly errors but errors that can have negative long-term effects on local markets and economies [5].Rapid manufacturing using 3-D printing is a potential solution to some of these pressing issues in humanitarian logistics. This has become potentially feasible with the open source 3-D printers developed from the self-replicating rapid prototyper (RepRap) project [6][7][8]. The RepRap project has driven down costs of 3-D printing to fit resource-constrained contexts like those found in the developing world or during a crisis [9]. The potential for 3-D printers in humanitarian aid work has been able to capture the interest of practitioners in the field [10], as 3-D printing can have positive effects on nearly every step of the humanitarian supply chain [5].3-D printing can reduce time and money used in the procurement of goods [11,12] by reducing the amount of capital required for manufacturing at a given location, allowing distributed manufacturing [13][14][15] or more localized manufacturing to occur [3,10]. By manufacturing goods locally at the site of a disaster response, the only materials that need to be shipped to the site of a disaster are the raw materials needed...

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“…There have been substantial recent developments in converting waste plastic/recycled plastic in 3-D printing filament with a recyclebot (waste plastic 3-D printer filament extruder [78]) and then use it for 3-D printing. Thermopolymer processes already developed include polylactic acid (PLA) [79][80][81][82], high-density polyethylene (HDPE) [78,83], acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) [84][85][86], as well as waste wood composites [87] and carbon fiber reinforced composites [88]. Future work is needed to design and optimize each of these components, as well as an overall cost optimization of the system.…”

Section: Future Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design Optimization of Polymer Heat Exchanger for Automated Household-Scale Solar Water Pasteurizer

Denkenberger

Pearce

2018

Designs

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Abstract:A promising approach to reducing the >870,000 deaths/year globally from unsafe water is flow-through solar water pasteurization systems (SWPs). Unfortunately, demonstrated systems have high capital costs, which limits access for the poor. The most expensive component of such systems is the heat exchanger (HX). Thus, this study focuses on cost optimization of HX designs for flow-through SWPs using high-effectiveness polymer microchannel HXs. The theoretical foundation for the cost optimization of a polymer microchannel HX is provided, and outputs are plotted in order to provide guidelines for designers to perform HX optimizations. These plots are used in two case studies: (1) substitution of a coiled copper HX with polymer microchannel HX, and (2) design of a polymer microchannel HX for a 3-D printed collector that can fit in an arbitrary build volume. The results show that substitution of the polymer expanded HX reduced the overall expenditure for the system by a factor 50, which aids in making the system more economical. For the second case study, the results show how future system designers can optimize an HX for an arbitrary SWP geometry. The approach of distributed manufacturing using laser welding appears promising for HX for SWP.

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A low carbon footprint approach to the reconstitution of plastics into 3D-printer filament for enhanced waste reduction

Cited by 55 publications

References 8 publications

3-D Printable Polymer Pelletizer Chopper for Fused Granular Fabrication-Based Additive Manufacturing

3-D Printable Polymer Pelletizer Chopper for Fused Granular Fabrication-Based Additive Manufacturing

Development of a Resilient 3-D Printer for Humanitarian Crisis Response

Design Optimization of Polymer Heat Exchanger for Automated Household-Scale Solar Water Pasteurizer

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